3/16/2008 No Books Fried Chicken

Yesterday was my first dining experience at the chain restaurant Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Sheerly out of convenience, my coworkers and I went to the establishment imagining it would be quick. The KFC building shared a parking lot with the Ramada Inn where my bosses were stationed in Pigeon Forge, and as many of you may be unlucky enough to know, traffic there is miserable. We would have chosen a restaurant called "Kentucky Fried Dog Brains" if it meant we didn’t have to drive down that strip of hell.

As we entered the building we sojourned in the vestibule for almost ten minutes, and when we finally made it to the counter we encountered even more delays. The gal taking our order was also involved in conversation with a drive-thru customer so I thought she was going crazy at first, but then I saw her ear piece and decided it was the other person pissing her off.

I ordered a sandwich on the menu first with words, then by pointing at the picture of it. Every option was an issue:
ME: "can I get green beans instead of fries?"
GAL:Well, we don’t do it that way. What I can do is give you slaw, and an extry side order of beans or corn or somethin."
ME: "OK, Never mind. Fries are cool. Please just make the sandwich without mayo"
GAL "OK Honey". after a couple of minutes she hollers across the counter at me:

GAL: "OK, now, I’m real sorry but all our buns are frozen solid. Is there something else I could get you?"
ME: "Could I just have the ingredients of the sandwich without the bun?"
GAL: "???????"
ME: "Or make it on a biscuit?"
GAL:"???????????"
ME: "Or whatever is fine"
GAL: "OK"

At this point I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to get a chicken sandwich.

When our orders were presented to us I didn’t even know which plate was mine. I ended up getting three chicken strips, an ear of corn, slaw, and a biscuit. It wasn’t so bad, but at the table right next to us was a huge church youth group. The kids were between 12 and 16 or so, and they were in the throws of their awkward youth. There were two adults with the group who sat as far away as possible while the kids yapped, chanted, sang, rapped, and squealed. They were up and down, dancing around the place, throwing fried chicken into each other’s mouths and messing around with the drink fountain. While the accompanying adults practically blended in with the hideous wall paper, the kids ran around the dining room as if it were a gymnasium. Everyone in my party was too shocked to even complain for some time, till Paul stated at full volume "I don’t really get irritated much anymore but if those were my kids I would tie them to their damn chairs and tape their mouths shut" (or something to that effect) He then turned to another person in out party and asked "Do your kids act like that at the restaurant?"

Immediately afterwards; exodus. The entire group filed out of the place and back into their brightly painted church bus, and onward to "The Miracle Theater", or whatever.

miracle


An example of Pigeon Forge’s hellishness is out of the hundreds of businesses (most specializing in fudge, dolls, or wedding chapels) crammed onto a one mile strip, there is only one bookstore, and it is a Christian bookstore. I checked the place because it was a huge, two story building, but it was full of "Chicken Soup For the Christian Soul" type books. Lots of calendars and bookmarks; no real books.